But it always seems to happen in places we haven’t secured after 10 years of trying!
Of course the idea that the Afghan government is ready to take over on security makes about as much sense as the Taliban deciding to lay down their arms and promote women’s rights.
Yet the Pentagon continues to feed the fantasy that we will win any decade now, because the alternative is that we might finally get serious about an exit strategy.
Gorilla says: “Failure is an orphan across the generations!”
A central banker watches as massive fraud pervades the financial system, then has to flee the country because he fears his life is in danger…
No, it’s not Greenspan, or Bernanke, or Trichet: it’s Afghanistan!
Gorilla says: “No more in control than those other guys!”
And not just for baseball managers:
The President should fire both Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus…
Afghanistan has been a tremendous Pentagon failure. 10 years on, there’s no end in sight.
Our trillion dollar military has been held to a draw by a few thousand fifth-rate Taliban fighters. It’s a national disgrace for which heads should roll.
And to have failures like Mullen and Petraeus say that the President’s timetable for withdrawal (which should have happened already) is “risky” is the height of disloyalty.
Gorilla says: “Worthless, unprofessional and disloyal generals and admirals deserve nothing but contempt!”
Then we’ll be back to where we were 2 years ago…
Ten years on, and thousands of pointless deaths later, Afghanistan remains a complete mess.
We’ve never had enough troops to occupy the country and defeat the insurgency.
The insurgency itself is sponsored by Pakistan, our so-called ally who also gave us al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
We have not won hearts and minds because you can’t nation build in what’s not really a nation.
We still have no exit strategy.
Gorilla says: “We all want to get out, but the Pentagon wants to keep on losing!”
NATO: a dismal failure, says the Secretary of Defense currently losing 3 wars!!!
And he’s right, the Europeans simply don’t have the military capacity to win in Libya without boots on the ground.
Of course, that’s the conclusion the Administration should have reached before embarking on the stupidest military operation since Iraq.
NATO itself should have been abolished 20 years ago, it has no strategic mission now that the Cold War is over.
But the larger dismal failure is the Pentagon, with a budget greater than the rest of the world’s militaries combined and unable to win against a similar bunch of ragtag tribesman after 10 years in Afghanistan.
Gorilla says: “Time to break the war bonds!”
For jobs in the Administration:
Now, it’s Ryan Crocker to Afghanistan, yet another man who could not tell the truth to anyone in power and got a Medal of Freedom for it!
And it’s Mueller of the FBI, who failed America completely at 9/11, but must have another 2 years because ???
And it’s Geithner at Treasury, a corrupted and unconvincing clown apologist for Wall Street, who doesn’t give a damn about unemployed Americans?
And it’s Bernanke at the Fed, misser of the housing bubble, who’s shocked, shocked to find that his fellow Republicans are batshit crazy, but doesn’t want to rock their boat by saying they are?
Why is it not possible to find qualified people for these jobs who are not discredited Republican remnants or demonstrably incompetent?
Gorilla answers: “Because failure is a feature, not a bug, in Washington!”
97% of the Afghan economy consists of the aid we are pissing away there.
It’s been clear for some time that the country will descend into civil war once we leave, and that our efforts at nation building have been a total failure.
Gorilla says: “The time to stop this nonsense was 10 years ago!”
The pointless war in Afghanistan may at last be heading towards a conclusion!
With the death of bin Laden, the primary justification for the invasion (which of course was accomplished in 2001, albeit with bin Laden escaping, but has changed many times since) is now history.
It’s long past time for the US to cut a deal and let Afghanistan get on with the business of civil war, if that’s what they want, or something better, if that’s what they want.
Gorilla says: “We should have gone 10 years ago, and we should be gone no more than 10 months from now!”
Angela Merkel: in describing killing bin Laden as being “a victory for the forces of peace”, now currently engaged in 3 pointless wars?
Our national leaders, whose latest rationale for fighting in Afghanistan no longer bears any resemblance to our original rationale for fighting in Afghanistan?
A dead terrorist who got lucky once and then became the greatest threat to civilization?
Gorilla says: “All of the above equally, I believe!”
Even when we capture them, the Taliban manage to dig their way out!
And the point remains the same: the Afghan government isn’t capable of running the country, and the US military does not have enough troops to keep the Taliban at bay.
Gorilla says: “Time for us to break out of this pointless quagmire!”
Gorilla’s Blog